Fisher 500 Amp: The 50-Year-Old King of Pure Stereophonic Sound

A far cry from the big-box fleets of modern, megafeature, home theater amps, this is still the pinnacle of pure stereophonic sound. | Photo: Jens Mortensen

The debut of Avery Fisher’s combo amplifier-receiver in the early 1960s signaled the dawn of the home stereo revolution. It initially came in two flavors: the basic 500B (pictured) and the slightly pricier 500C, which added a headphone jack. Both injected recordings with a hitherto unheard liveliness, using a magic mix of vacuum tubes and capacitors to transform electrical signals into incredibly sweet music. When the first consumers to plunk down $370 heard Bob Dylan singing like he was a few feet away, many were convinced that nothing less would ever satisfy their ears. More than 50 years later, audiophiles still deify the two Fisher models. Revered by online communities, there’s a cottage industry devoted to keeping the stereo 500s in working order. Some look at the stately metal-and-wood bodies and see a relic. The rest of us see the antidote to the sterility of the digital age.